Wambasi Fred Butete:0724051124

Welcome to Lugari County Now that parliament has approved 80 new constituencies splitting Lugari into 3 1] Lugari Constituency 2] Likuyani Constituency 3] Matete Constituency This is a noble thing for Lugarians, we have always had an administrative challenge all through and the time has come for us to start advocating for a new county, The LUGARI COUNTY. We have to remain united as ever, and if someone is watching then pay attention to Lugarians as now we expect to have a new county, LUGARI COUNTY. Every LUGARIAN should start advocating for this so that we can ease the administrative challenges that have disadvantaged us since time immemorial. The question is are we ready to advocate for a new County? We have to start now united as Lugarians.

Introduction Lugari District Location & Population Lugari constituency covers the entire Lugari district and shares common borders with Trans-Nzoia district on the North East, and Uasin gishu District on the South East. It also borders Kakamega District on the South West and Bugoma District on the North West. The District runs along the Great North Road (Nairobi-Kampala Road). It is surrounded with up coming towns like Eldoret, Kitale, Kakamega, and Bugoma. The district has Kipkerren River that runs across the district with shallow water supply. The district is also bordering River Nzoia to the North East. Lugari district covers approximately 9400 km square with an estimated population of about 300,000 people. Women and the Youth take the larger portion of the population. The constituency was settled with squatters by the government into small pieces of land averaging to two acres and other settler are those who joined the settlement scheme as early as 1962. Therefore the inhabitants are entirely poor and living far below poverty lines. The < map > shows that Lugari District is engulfed by a triangle that lay on the North West in the map with Kitale town Marked on the North, Webuye on the West and Eldoret on the South East.

Lugari District Climate & Administration

Wambasi Fred Butete:0724051124

The annual rainfall ranges between 500 and 900 mm and the average temperature vary around 22 and 230C degrees. The district is situated in the Rift Valley highland zone and receives sufficient rain showers during the month of March, April, July, August, the rest of the months are very dry. The dry periods leave the land fallow which would have been used for the growth of beans since the crop does not have a seasonal growth. Administratively the Lugari constituency is divided into eight sub-locations composing of villages numbering to over 120. The constituency engalves the newly created Lugari District and has not really put in root for development. The District Commissioner is the head of district government administration, and the structure of administrations get narrowed to Chiefs, Assistant Chiefs, and village Elders. Elders are in charge of villages. The high number of women and Youth Groups in the area necessitated the need to have a combine effort in searching for funds and combining Groups with similar objectives. It became easier to work with Village Elders as government representative on grass root and as they have boundary demarcation records and know Groups that are registered and existed in that particular village. This fact makes it easy to combine for example, 6 women or Youth Groups into one centre of administration. In this case it becomes easier to combine administrative boundaries of two villages into one centre of service benefit for the community. The administration of the project remains in the leadership of the joint groups and the elders, while other institutions remain overseers. The involvement of the Village Elders has a security reason for investment and sustainable projects. Also the Elders have the potential to access the public for publicity of these projects in public Rallies.

Lugari District Development Profile Lugari district was established by Presidential decree in late 1998 and therefore it is one of newly created districts in Kenya. The district is still underdeveloped and her inhabitants mainly practice peasant agriculture. The infrastructure (rural roads) is not developed and many villages lack social amenities and accessibility to few available social services (in terms of transport facilities, telephones etc.)

Lugari District Water Supply There is critical shortage of water quality for domestic, livestock and economic purpose. In this district there are few boreholes; and inadequate seasonal rivers. There are some few shallow wells that supply water in some season .Main sources of water supply in the district are gravity and underground Schemes. The water catchments have unclean water, though never dry in all seasons but the water is never in use. Most people, about 48% do not have access to clean and safe water and within a reasonable distance. In some of the sources of water, water is not available all the year round as some sources dry up during the dry reason hence causing a lot of hardships especially to women and children to travel
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Wambasi Fred Butete:0724051124

long distances to fetch water resulting into women not being able to attend to their children properly and children not to attend school respectively. There are number of wastewater discharge from about ten zones that due to their nature of not being dry all year round would be of value to the community if the water sources would be improved and controlled in useful water quality distributaries.There is need to develop water reserve tanks that could accommodate water for long season and be used as a common centre to serve a population within an area of reasonable square kilometres. On the other hand livestock rearing especially with men are prompted to move with their livestock to seek for pasture living women and children behind hence causing more suffering to both mothers and children. Men, who are employed, leave behind cattle rearing in the hands of women who lack sufficient means to provide green pasture for animals. The standard of personal hygiene and sanitation is very low especially among the Luyah people and this is partially contributed by lack of adequate water. Again insufficient water exposes children to water borne diseases.
Sunday, June 12, 2011Sunday, June 12, 2011